Helping My Ex-Wife Find Love Every Day - Chapter 23

The horror movie was destined to be a huge hurdle in Yao Xiangyi’s life. She waited and waited, finally seeing it come to an end. Still shaken, Yao Xiangyi shrank into Qiu Qingshi’s embrace, like a little puppy abandoned in the rainy night.

Her pretty face was pale, and cold sweat kept breaking out.

She hugged her hot drink and gulped it down incessantly. After finishing her own, she started on Qiu Qingshi’s.

Qiu Qingshi’s chin rested on the crown of her head. “Darling, have you recovered?”

Yao Xiangyi complained, “Don’t call me darling, you heartless bastard.”

Qiu Qingshi chuckled to herself, her hand sliding down to cover Yao Xiangyi’s lower back, rubbing up, down, left, and right, taking advantage of the situation. She played along with Yao Xiangyi’s words, coaxing her, “Alright, alright, I’m a bastard.”

Then, changing the subject, she teased, “After all these years, your courage hasn’t grown at all.”

But your (Bàzǒng, or ‘CEO’) temper has certainly grown.

Yao Xiangyi angrily pushed her away, turning aside and leaving her a resentful back to endure alone.

Qiu Qingshi realized her mistake and apologized with a good attitude.

Yao Xiangyi, with the magnanimity of an adult not holding a grudge against a child, chose to forgive. Once her emotions were completely calm, the audience had all left, leaving only the two of them. Qiu Qingshi wrapped an arm around her and walked out.

The elevator entrance was crowded. Qiu Qingshi hid in a corner, put on her mask, and let Yao Xiangyi lead the way, detouring to the safety passage.

The passage was empty and the lighting was stark white.

As soon as Qiu Qingshi stepped in, her wrist was grabbed forcefully, and her back slammed against the cold wall. Yao Xiangyi pressed in, bringing her hot breath close, her hands braced against the wall, firmly confining her.

Qiu Qingshi gasped in pain, letting out a surprised “Ya!”

Yao Xiangyi bit her nose through the mask as if venting her anger.

Qiu Qingshi was both pained and delighted. Her slender hands clasped Yao Xiangyi’s shoulders, enjoying the closeness with her.

Yao Xiangyi finished biting, pulled back slightly, and said fiercely, “You are the most reckless one. If you mess with me again next time, we’ll see how I deal with you.”

Qiu Qingshi found the mask bothersome, so she took it off, tossed it away, and leaned in until their foreheads touched. Her beautiful eyes sparkled with an ambiguous light. “Oh, good. First, tell me, what are your methods for dealing with me?”

Her voice echoed in the narrow space like gentle waves, beating against Yao Xiangyi’s heart, one pulse after another.

Love swelled Yao Xiangyi’s chest, and her spirit suddenly became hazy.

A voice in her mind reminded her… this was a lover who did not belong to her.

She lowered the light in her eyes, like a falling star. “Let’s go home.”

Sensing her withdrawal, Qiu Qingshi cupped the back of her neck, making it impossible for her to move. “You weren’t like this before.”

Yao Xiangyi raised an eyebrow. “What was I like before?”

Qiu Qingshi’s rosy tongue licked over her teeth, and she leaned in to capture Yao Xiangyi’s lips.

It was like a drought meeting sweet rain, the parched earth eagerly sucking up the dew.

They hadn’t kissed for a long time. A shallow sigh overflowed from Qiu Qingshi’s throat, as if she had enjoyed a full, satisfying meal.

“You were just like this before,” she said, using the tone of a teacher educating a student.

Yao Xiangyi’s passion, stirred by her provocation, flared into a raging fire. The breakdown of reason always occurs in an instant. She mischievously pinched Qiu Qingshi’s chin. “You only learned the superficial part.”

It was Qiu Qingshi’s first time being intimate with her beloved in a stairwell. It was dangerous here, they could be seen at any moment, and the resulting thrill was no less than a cross-country vehicle speeding along a mountain road.

They rushed to the parking lot and continued kissing in the car.

When they had kissed enough, Qiu Qingshi complained she was hungry and wanted to find a place for a late-night snack.

Yao Xiangyi turned the steering wheel to the left, driving out of the parking lot. “I watched the movie with you; you should be satisfied.”

Qiu Qingshi fastened her seatbelt and said unhappily, “How am I not satisfied? If my stomach is hungry, I need to eat!”

“We’ll order takeout at home,” Yao Xiangyi turned the car onto the auxiliary road and spoke to herself. “The crawfish this season are good, big and chewy. We’ll buy every flavor when we get back. I will pay.”

Qiu Qingshi hugged her arms, being stubborn. “I want to eat out.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“If you argue again, I’ll throw you out.”

Qiu Qingshi changed her strategy; the tough approach failed, so she went soft. “You should at least give me a reward, as I just kissed you.”

“You initiated it.”

Qiu Qingshi clicked her tongue, showing a pained expression. “You were the one who stuck your tongue out first.”

I am always out of place with humanity because of how exceptionally brutish I am.

Qiu Qingshi was triumphant, happily shaking her head. To celebrate, she connected her phone to the car’s Bluetooth and played “Nuan Nuan” (Warm) by Fish Leong.

Her acting skills were outstanding, and she was also a good singer. Her voice was clean and filled with feminine tenderness. She had sung one version of the theme song and the ending song for Phoenix Chronicles, treating it as promotional work for the TV series.

She hummed along softly with the music:

“I want to say, you are actually great, but you yourself don’t know it. You are sincerely good to me, asking for no return.”

“Loving a person, hoping she lives better, a warmth from the bottom of the heart, you are more important than myself.”

She was singing it to Yao Xiangyi.

A gentle melody, a light rhythm.

A sweet, flowing voice, filled with infinite love.

A knowing smile spread across Yao Xiangyi’s lips.

Under the hazy moonlight, the Maybach slowed down. The car window slowly rolled down, and the warm night wind blew into the cabin, carrying the song as it spiraled into the night sky.

Halfway through the song, Qiu Qingshi got down to business. She downloaded a takeout app and found a highly-rated crawfish restaurant nearby.

After checking the monthly sales and positive reviews, she decided to try it. She remembered this place; her cousin, Bessie Zhou, and her friend, Qi Baixuan, had recommended it to her.

There are two particularly special types of trendy restaurants:

One type has unique decor, having successfully turned itself into a photo-op spot.

The other type is hidden, a classic example of ‘good food doesn’t fear deep alleys.’ The owner’s craft is passed down from their parents, and kept within the family, so you can’t taste it anywhere else.

The one Qiu Qingshi chose belonged to the second category.

Yao Xiangyi’s car was too wide to navigate the narrow alleyways freely. She frowned. “Change the restaurant.”

Qiu Qingshi stuck out her neck. “No.”

Yao Xiangyi’s teeth ached with annoyance, and she vowed never to be so brutish during a kiss again.

She turned on the right signal light, drove off the main road, and pressed the brake at the entrance of a dark alley, where a lone, high-hanging lightbulb flickered intermittently.

Yao Xiangyi, having just watched a horror movie, asked, “…Are you sure it’s here?”

“Just follow the navigation inside, stop dragging your feet.”

For safety, Yao Xiangyi notified her bodyguards to rush over, striving to ensure Qiu Qingshi’s personal safety.

Qiu Qingshi complained about her overreacting. “The bodyguards won’t be able to get here for a while. Do we have to wait for them? I’m almost starving.”

She hooked her pinky around Yao Xiangyi’s and looked at her with teary eyes.

There’s nothing harder to resist than a beautiful woman’s favor. Yao Xiangyi compromised, releasing the brake. The car slid into the alley like a fish entering water.

Qiu Qingshi was overjoyed. She celebrated by singing a children’s song to praise Yao Xiangyi: “I have a good bàba (Daddy/Boss), Bàba is busy with work every day, working hard for the family, we all love her.”

Yao Xiangyi was utterly exasperated. “…Shut up.”

Qiu Qingshi obediently complied, reminding her based on the navigation instructions: “Drive slower, turn in two hundred meters… then drive fifty meters and turn left…”

The Maybach crawled slowly.

The navigation showed they were getting closer to the destination.

The ‘greedy worm’ in Qiu Qingshi’s stomach was rampant, causing her salivary glands to continuously secrete saliva.

There was only one final small turn left.

Yao Xiangyi awkwardly adjusted the steering wheel. As the car’s hood turned, the headlights shone on a group of… local thugs.

They completely packed the cramped alley. Each person held a steel pipe as thick as a bowl, and their arms were tattooed with ferocious patterns. Their facial expressions were the fiercest of the ferocious.

Especially their hair colors—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple—which successfully dazzled Yao Xiangyi and Qiu Qingshi.

Qiu Qingshi felt that her eyeshadow palette, blush palette, and all her lipstick shades combined couldn’t compete with them.

Precaution is the parent of safety. Yao Xiangyi rolled up the car windows and instructed Qiu Qingshi to cover up her celebrity face.

The leader of the thugs, with a crew cut and a slanted scar over his brow bone, was as skinny as a monkey. He was currently banging loudly on the door of a house.

The door was iron, rusty, and the banging created a huge noise, accompanied by the leader’s mouthful of obscenities, making it very grating.

He saw a luxury car drive in and spat on the ground with great disdain, though he didn’t dare to be too reckless with his words. “We’re doing business here. Take another road.”

However, his underling, Chestnut Head, was disrespectful. He walked with an exaggerated splay-footed gait and kicked the car tire. “Get lost, get lost quickly!”

Qiu Qingshi’s lips compressed into a straight line of intense displeasure.

Yao Xiangyi’s palm covered her hand. The warm body temperature and comforting touch reassured Qiu Qingshi.

Yao Xiangyi cracked the car window slightly, warning, “Don’t touch my car. It’s very expensive.”

Chestnut Head was shamed and became furious. He kicked the tire again. “Damn it, I’ll touch it today! I’ll touch it!”

Yao Xiangyi sneered coldly, tinged with impatience, and glanced sideways at him.

Chestnut Head’s spine inexplicably turned cold. He rubbed his arms, which had erupted in goosebumps, and shivered.

Yao Xiangyi spoke with clear, ringing words: “You wait here.”

Her voice was soft, yet it struck everyone’s eardrums like a heavy hammer hitting a loud drum, shaking all the thugs.

The leader, Crew Cut, had been roaming the Jianghu (underworld) and was somewhat well-known, holding a minor position in the Haishi (Sea City) criminal world. This was the first time he had encountered someone who dared to disrespect his subordinate.

Damn it. Disrespecting his subordinate was disrespecting him.

And in front of so many people, how could he continue to survive?

As if having money made you great.

He walked up and slapped Chestnut Head twice, the sounds crisp and pleasant. “You useless thing, always causing trouble!”

Chestnut Head took the beating, bowed and scraped, and retreated.

Crew Cut put one hand in his trouser pocket and bent down, trying to peer through the window crack. The light was too dim, so he could barely make out that there were two women inside.

Tch!

Just two women.

He shook his leg like he had Parkinson’s, and tossed his head back, which he thought was handsome and潇灑 (xiāosǎ, chic/debonair). “Apologize to my little brother, and I’ll let you go.”

Yao Xiangyi: “Stay away from my car.”

Crew Cut: “Hey, you’re pretty cocky!”

Yao Xiangyi channeled Murong Yunhai: “So what.”

Crew Cut was uneducated and didn’t understand. “Speak human language!”

Yao Xiangyi: “The car glass is also very expensive.”

Crew Cut: “I didn’t touch it!”

Yao Xiangyi: “Your saliva splashed on it.”

Crew Cut: Wò Rì (I F***)!!!!

Suddenly, the rusty iron door opened. Standing in the doorway was a tall, thin girl.

Holding a kitchen knife, she shouted hysterically, “I’d like to see who dares to come closer!”

Yao Xiangyi and Qiu Qingshi looked over—

Their pupils dilated instantly.

Oh my god.

It’s Bai Mengzhao… AGAIN!!!!